Hello everyone. I'm Benj. I live in London, UK and I'm 31.
I've been studying Buddhism for around eight years, with one eyebrow raised consitently throughout. I have also been meditating for the same amount of time. After finding Jhananda's work, my right palm met my forehead with an alrighty slap as I realised the way I started meditating (based on my gut instinct, with no outside input) was in fact the most effective. Years of thinking I needed a teacher and listening to others did nothing but confuse me and slow my progress. I now sit, listen to my experience and cross reference it with the suttas that I feel are authentic. I am now a Jhana Yogi, and life is good.
I'm studying a masters degree in Integrative Counselling and work in a child and adolescent psychiatric hospital, which I am leaving, because it is ******* crazy (pun intended) and desperately sad. I am currently working on critically analysing all western therapeutic models and mental illness's in the context of Dependent Origination and I'm developing a therapeutic model for the west which is based on this. I would say my main areas of interest are in the realms of counselling and 'mental illness' in the context of spirituality and the religious experience.
The way I work with others is to listen deeply to their experience, relay it back to them in a way which brings us together, then share my own experience so they don't think they're going crazy. I will never say that someone is right or wrong. In this vein, I feel that an authentic jhana/mystic teacher reflects the best qualities in an authentic counsellor, so I feel satisfied pursuing this line of work until my children are graduated and I can go live in a shed somewhere. Oh and on that note, another interest of mine is understanding and negotiating the conflicts that arise when married people and parents suddenly wake up and realise they need to lead a contemplative life, adjunct to changing diapers and paying rent.
Benj.
